My copper accident experience in my reef tank

MTBake · Mar 1, 2019

Glad this is turning around for you.

Poly pads work great, ime. I always run one when I suspect something toxic or organic causing issues.

Fwiw, I've also seen brass fittings get corroded like that with ro/di water flowing through them at work. They don't last 3 years before degrading beyond unusable. We use a lot of ro/di water in the EDM process. Our di bottles are around 80lbs.

Reefer963 · Apr 8, 2019

Well as a final update... copper had been zero for over a week, poly filters were clean and to celebrate I bought a couple new fish to replace the ones lost.

I beat copper!! I’m calling it a complete victory and I have even more proof.... not in a good way though and will likely be the start of a new series LOL!

I got so excited about beating copper and getting new fish after such a long time I did not follow a cardinal rule and quarantine. Guess what I got for my troubles (and ultimate proof of being copper free).......... an ich out break

As one struggle ends I start the next one. Always an adventure and proof this hobby is not for the weak hearted!

I will start my treatment and if time I’ll post a similar thread as I will not be using copper

Wish me luck!

saintsreturn · Apr 8, 2019

Thank you. This was clearly a toll for you to pass through and sharing the struggle was probably not easy. But sharing experiences helps people when you dont even know it. I am beyond excited to hear that it worked out and that you stuck it out. Awesome read thus far and a great resource for someone for sure!

raketemensch · Dec 17, 2019

My first tank was/is a used buy through Facebook, and it didn’t strike me as odd that the return pipe from the cartridge filter (now retired) was copper, so there was an inch or so of copper pipe just sitting right in the tank for 3 weeks or so.

After cycling I added some ceriths and nassarius snails, which promptly died.

It’s been about a month since then, with a switch to a sump and a looooong cycle due to various reasons, but cuprisorb has done a decent job of removing copper. I will do a fresh test again tomorrow, but your post has given me some hope.

jtroxel1 · May 13, 2021

Reefer963 said:
I post this to try to give others hope. All is not lost if copper accidentally gets in your system!

About 6 months ago I had my sump moved from under my tank to the back room. It’s a 225 gallon display and 75 gallon sump loaded with hundreds of pounds of live rock and deep sand bed. The tank has been running for 8 years. Over the 6 month period things slowly started going badly. I started losing corals then snails. Then the crabs died and all the macro algae. All the coralline bleached out and the live rock turned black. I then started losing a few fish. All the while I was trying to figure out what had gone so wrong. All my water parameters were good for what I tested.

I finally got advice it could be copper but did not believe that could have been possible. I bought a copper test kit and it was off the charts for copper. I started digging around thinking something fell in or equipment died. After finding nothing I looked behind the walls on a hunch. Low and behold they used shark bite brass fittings on my returns. I immediately cut them out and replaced with pvc but what I saw was unbelievable! The entire inside of the brass was eaten away. I could almost push my finger through the fitting with how much material was missing on the 4 fittings. Obviously copper is a major component of brass and my tank had been severely poisoned.

I read literally hundreds of articles telling me all was lost and I would have to start over costing thousands of dollars to replace tank, plumbing, rock, sand, etc (prob close to $10k). As I was giving up hope and leave the hobby I found an article here on this site that gave me a little hope.

I listened to the advice on their post and I did the following: I bought Cuprisorb, carbon, and poly-filters. The cuprisorb seemed to work slowly as it took a long time to change colors but I recharged it weekly for 8 weeks. Carbon I have no idea if it helped or not but I changed out several pounds weekly. The poly-filter is the bomb. I cut strips and placed in the baffles of the sump and it would turn blue and I would replace it. I have no idea how much I used over the 2 month period.

Every 2 days I would use a turkey baster to blast the live rock and disturb the sand. The skimmer went crazy pulling all the dead gunk out and had to be dumped daily for the first month. After 2 months of treatment I still was testing at .15 copper and was about to call it quits when I noticed movement on the live rock. I took a flashlight and saw little rock bugs had returned. I have no idea how they were able to return or where they came from but they were indeed there. They were everywhere on the rock. Over the treatment period there was nothing on the rock. It went from black to brown to white to green over the 2 months but never before had there been signs of life. I kept the fish in the tank with no I’ll effect but that was all that I ever saw alive prior to then.

I went to lfs and bought a hermit crab. Acclimated him and tossed him in. Success! He lived. I bought 20 more and all thrived. A week later copper still tested at .15 and polyfilters still turned blue but much much slower I tried a few snails and they have survived and thriving. I just tried a few polyp corrals and they opened up and look good. Some of the coralline has started to return to rock and glass as well.

Individual results may vary obviously but in my case I dodged a bullet it seems. It took a while and cost me thousands in corrals and cleanup crew initially but I did not have to replace everything like I was told I would have to. I really credit the poly-filter for the success. I plan to keep them in use until they no longer turn blue over a 30 day period.

Sorry for long post but I wanted to share with others that may have a similar issue that all is not guaranteed lost no matter what some people will tell you.

Thank you. Thank you so much! Starting your journey now, but still no source of the copper spike. No brass fittings on my tank.